Forgiveness

 

Rarely is this voice heard or if heard respected. Forgiveness is a gift to yourself, to the injuring party and to the world. In this Easter Season there have been many moments I found joy, lightness and openness and many times I have felt loss, aloneness and pain. That is the process leading to forgiveness. Sometimes there are patterns that repeat itself in relationships and you have to stop the pattern. And sometimes stopping that pattern requires saying true things that change the other's perspective and the way they choose to move forward or not. When this pattern for you finally ends, you may feel relief.  

But a choice follows.

You can choose to blame yourself, the other person or God or life circumstances, your parents or all or part or a myriad of other options or you can just choose to forgive everyone you blamed.

There is a freedom in forgiving yourself, the other person and your false concept of God (or whomever else you blamed). It lifts the cloud and makes you light. It allows you to face the music and let others handle things their own way. It allows you to let go and move on. What follows is that you open to new experiences,  new people, and to God in a different way. You open to whatever comes or does not come your way. It frees you to see that sometimes you don't see and so you forgive that too,

Forgiveness takes many forms. The past is one..the present is another and the future requires another. Sometimes you will fail in the moment but the goal remains the same. Don't forget to forgive yourself too.

For me and God..I think I took the signs as an answer. Perhaps the answer was to open up and keep walking through problems over and over again because I kept seeing signs and progress. I have to believe the purpose is growth now. Many beautiful gifts come from a failed relationship. But I have to be honest and say..in hindsight I would have stopped walking through the problems a long long time ago. On the other hand, I learned to the very end something very valuable had I not walked through the problems until I could no more. In any case God uses every choice the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly for His grand purpose. And I am grateful I don't get to know or judge.

If it took this experience to learn the beauty, the power and the healing effect of forgiveness then it was well worth it.  It's a muscle I will have to use over and over for myself and others. I hope to give God the reins fully one day..it seems to work for a lot of people but that process for me now still requires  discernement, pondering and the free will choice to continue down this path of faith.

One day I will look back and say this major shift led to this wonderful new path and the timing was right and it never would have been if this other thing did not happen or end when it did or the way it did. 

Forgiveness is what drew me back to faith. The famous passage while Jesus was hanging on the cross, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."  That touched me in a way nothing else did when I came to know the purpose of life. Give that voice/whisper a chance.  Forgiveness is one of the more beautiful gifts God has taught us about and it works.

A Pivotal Moment

Its January 31, 2015. We move to a new year soon and it is natural to reflect.

Our experiences are part in parcel a reflection of who we are at the moment. What works and what does not. We can tweak and re-choose and keep learning about ourselves and how we fit into this temporary mosaic.

2015 was momentous for me. I let go of pursuing acting in LA full time to part time by moving back to the bay. That was driven by many reasons..none the least of which was my health. When I moved back I launched an Airbnb business and was busy setting that up and refurnishing my home. 

I then followed up with the next steps to assess what was going on with my health and found out I had a very rare and super slow growth tumor in my lung. The cure was surgery and removing the middle lobe of my lung. I did not want that to be the answer...so I went on a rampage researching...getting all kinds of tests. Looking at natural cures etc. Eliciting prayers from close friends, acquaintances, people of all faiths...no holds bar.:-) Fear in over drive.

In the end I opted for the surgery. I had a fun bday and an amazing trip to Cabo prior and then chaos ensued. Long story short my life would never be the same again..my perception of reality changed and growth happened.

Despite all this the Surgery and recovery was a success.

We all know growth is a euphemism for an extremely painful experience, but you either grow or you get stuck in bitterness. 

The rest of my year was me getting past the bitterness and embracing the deepened friendships, a deeper and less rigid faith, and embracing a new dating experience where I had to learn to communicate in a healthy way and where I learned boundaries and compromise.

So I smile now..knowing that no matter what curves come my way or what is taken from me to the next world...no matter how crazy our world gets..I will be more than ok..and we will be more than ok. Rejoice life is a gift and cherishing it..thru all the ups and downs..is downright worth it.

Sometimes We Need the Desert

I was struggling this month for a theme. Sometimes the events don't directly inspire a theme and then it just comes.

This month has many events I have written about in the past like Epiphany, MLK day and of course the Walk for Life in SF and DC.

But as decisions and transitions always do for me, I self reflect. At first I do what comes naturally for me as an extrovert, I embrace the people in my path and around me. It energizes me and invigorates me and I feel a zest and purpose. It is also my way of processing. Once I gain experience in a certain realm, I generally make decisions instinctually. My instincts are rarely wrong.

I think hope and positivity sometimes gets me into trouble. I always am creative at finding solutions and finding ways to grow but we all have our limits. Humbly, I have found my own. Does it mean I can never outgrow them? No. But it does mean I must respect them and honor them. Love indeed is powerful and can conquer all but I again think that in my zeal to want Love, I try to make it happen.

I try to find the ingredients and the timing and the head tries to make things work and here in is the rub. The head tries to make it work when in essence it is God that has either gifted Love or has not. Still blessings abound as we learn and grow.

Humbly, I now have fairly unbendable standards as I patiently wait for God to guide and gift. Yes fun times and connecting with people on deep levels and serving and learning are all so valuable.

But I find I also desperately need those moments, longer moments when I go into the desert as Jesus did to be with God. The answers there in that silence speak louder than any words can.

I think many social movements that change society start in those desert moments. I think the depth of an epiphanic event deepens in those desert moments. 

Jesus gave us the model.  Festive , as some despairingly called Him a glutton and a drunkard, who also was with the masses to help and heal but then would retire into the desert.

God bless you on your journey toward connecting, communing and having joy. But when you need to as well, you might find like me that sometimes we need the desert.